Examples of DMCA Abuse

I am the victim of DMCA abuse, but I am hardly the first, nor am I the most important. I would like to share with you other examples of abuse. I have analyzed several in detail, but there are others that I haven't had time to analyze yet. I plan on giving some of these unanalyzed cases the detailed attention they deserve in the future. Check back in a month or so and I should have more information on them. In the meantime, I will provide a link or two so you can start your own research. After reading through these, you will know why I call the DMCA the "Scoundrel Protection Act".

1. The Church of Scientology: This is a Church where Free Speech doesn't have a prayer.
2. Diebold vs OPG: How the DMCA nearly undermined our democracy.
3. The Crooked case of Michael Crook: How the DMCA can be the best (and possibly only) friend of a mean spirited, Holocaust-Denying, U.S. troop-hating little punk.
4. The strange case of Christopher Knight: Or, how you can have your videos deleated when you post your own material.
5. The Viacom Dragnet: Or 100,000 reasons to love the DMCA
6. LiberalViewer: Or HELP! I was caught in the Viacom Dragnet and had to teach Youtube's copyright department about copyright law!
7. Wendy Seltzer v. the NFL: Or The NFL's Foul Play
8. UMG vs Michelle Malkin: Was the DMCA Used To Cover Up Evidence Of Molesting A Minor?
9. Christian Science Evangilism vs. Their Youtube Critics

Here are a few more cases that I might cover in the future:

1. The Science Fiction Writers of America vs. Common Sense--or Copyright Law meets The Twilight Zone
2. Sapient v. Geller: Sapient's page and documents posted at EFF

 

Brian Flemming wrote one of the most brilliant columns I have read about Youtube's policy, which I quote from its entirety. It may be used under the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 1.0 Generic Creative Commons liscence.

 

YouTube is eager to be Kent Hovind's bitch

The latest Kent Hovind scandal appears to be a larger scale repeat of the Uri Geller one.

The facts as I'm able to determine them:

1. Kent Hovind, an evangelist for the crackpot Bible-based pseudoscience called creationism, distributes many videos advocating his position.

2. Hovind repeatedly and explicitly states that his videos "are not copyrighted" and encourages free distribution of them.

3. Critics of Hovind use his videos in a quotation context to build their arguments against his position; this usage of Hovind's work is doubly protected free speech -- as fair use (comment and criticism) as well as by Hovind's own release of copyright in his work.

4. A few days ago, Hovind starts filing copyright-based complaints against his critics who use his videos in their works. He demands that YouTube take the videos down.

5. YouTube responds, Yes, sir! How high? Entire YouTube accounts --including scores of videos containing no disputed content whatsoever -- are immediately shut down because of YouTube's policy of responding like an enraged psychotic schoolgirl to any complaint that contains the word "copyright."

YouTube is too important an institution in our culture to have such an easily abused policy. An analogy would be your bank freezing all of the money in your account because some random person came up to the bank and said, "I think this person has some of my money in there," thereby forcing you to prove to the bank that this frivolous claim is not true in order to get access to your money back. It would be a stupid policy.

Yet, that's all it takes to get a YouTube video taken down. Just press the "send" button on a single complaint claiming that a scrap of your intellectual property is in someone's video. If you want an entire YouTube channel taken down, just send another complaint or two; now your target is a "repeat offender" and will be suspended. It doesn't matter to YouTube that you have no serious legal case, or that your real motivation is to remove embarrassing but deserved criticism. YouTube will be your eager lackey, taking down whatever you tell them to take down, and further punishing anyone you designate by taking down all their other videos, too.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to abuse this policy. In fact, all it takes is a creation scientist. It's also rather obvious that the kind of YouTube channels most likely to be innocent victims of this abuse are the ones engaging in the most controversial speech -- i.e., topics like religion and politics. Historically, that kind of speech has been considered the most deserving of protection in the United States. It's good for the culture to have a vigorous, unfettered dialogue about controversial subjects.

But on YouTube, the most important speech is the least protected speech. YouTube, while portraying itself as the voice of the common citizen, appears not to care that its policies encourage the shutdown of religious and political expression.

This is a major story. Why it's not all over the media I can't fathom.

I think Brian Sapient may be right that more radical action is necessary to illustrate how harmful to free expression YouTube's takedown policies are.